The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

(Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie)

Dir: Luis Buñuel, 1972, France/Italy/Spain, 102 mins, Cert: 15

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Thu 28 June // 20:00

Tickets: £5 (full) / £4 (concession)

A group of six upper-class friends repeatedly attempts to gather for a meal, only to be interrupted by a succession of bizarre events - from the still-warm corpse of a restaurant owner in an adjoining room, to a platoon of soldiers arriving unannounced at the dinner table. Meanwhile, a drug smuggling ring finds itself under threat from a terrorist selling clockwork dogs, and a shotgun-toting bishop takes revenge for an earlier wrong.

Such a description could only really be that of a film by Luis Buñuel, who in this late masterpiece once again cast his anarchically satirical eye at hypocrisies of the so-called great and good. With an all-star cast including Delphine Seyrig, Fernando Rey and Stéphane Audran, this remains one of the best-loved and most wickedly perverse works by the great master of cinematic surrealism.